Apple does one of the best jobs designing marketing into the front end of products. However, with most of the best looking products they have had the functionality of the product tends to suffer because the physical appearance of the product has been favored. A perfect example of this is the Macbook Air which, while beautiful to look at, was crippled in exchange for its looks.

However the new iPod Nano appears to be that rare product which balances capability and beauty to be something unique and special and a few words of praise.

4th Generation Product

What I think is somewhat ironic is that Microsoft has the reputation of taking 3 cycles to get something right and this product took four. But that is really unfair because each version of this product was arguably as good as anything else out there and none, with the possible exception of version 3, were actual disappointments.

The first version was more like a typical Apple product, catch your breath beautiful but incredibly fragile tending to scratch easily or worse, break in half. The second version was substantially less attractive but substantially more robust, and the third version was vastly more capable but was even less attractive, to my eye, then the second.

The current version is, to my eye, more attractive than the first, more robust than the second, more capable than the third and still a good value in terms of product cost. I can’t really recall the last time I’ve seen a product blend the lessons from all of the previous iterations it has had so well.

Simply Very Nice Work

Apple has had far more than its share of great products but I think the iPod Nano, in terms of how well it balances what it does with how it looks and how much it costs, is arguably the best product I have seen this year even when taken against the more popular Apple offerings like the iPhone. There is an excellent chance that, by year end, it will get my vote for product of the year.